Caelan Doris

He joins.

My voice may not last for this, but Caelan Doris, Jack Boyle, Harry Byrne, Jack Conan, Jack Crowley, Ian Henderson, Panny McCarthy, Calvin Nash, and Bryn Ward are all out of the autumn for Ireland, which feels like a lot.

LAUGHTER Rio Dyer's out the Wales squad with a hamstring injury meaning that everyone in Clarnetley's favourite new tarty back Max Page gets the nod Finn Smith might be injured but might also not be Charlie Atkinson's been called up anyway Scotland have got a clean bill of health so I dread to think I gave that a week I

gave that a week yeah France have called up a South African guy just to hang around with them for a bit.

Uh, when you say keep the ball alive, that y- that's different to that, that kind of structured play, is it? You're talking about offloads and hot potato and just keep it going and keep the momentum going and score a try quickly and efficiently.

Yeah, like if you think of the, the Irish players back then, if, if Caelan Doris is carrying the ball into contact, the two p- players that are supporting him are thinking, "Who am I targeting at this breakdown?" They're not thinking of where, where and when is this offload gonna come? I need to be ready to catch the ball.

Mm.

If it was thrown, it nearly would've hit off their chest or off their head because it was unexpected.

Yeah, so y- y- you can have out-halves that, that play phase by phase, or you can have, and I was a bit more like that, and there was an element of pull, pulling a, a rabbit out of the hat from, from time to time, and then you can have out-halves who can plan two, three phases ahead, and it, they're instinctive.

So let's say the ball's coming off nine, it's going to the 10, you're playing a forward into the middle of the field.

You're looking out, you see it's Jack Conan or Caelan Doris.

You're thinking, "Right, he's probably gonna dominate the contact here.

Can you take us inside, like, the, the Leinster leadership group? Obviously you've, you've got their incredible internationals.

Caelan Doris is the, the captain.

Does-- what's he like as a leader, and then does he lean on certain people to fill the voids? Like, captains can't just do all the talking, can't just be the sort of guy that motivate all the time.

So who does he lean on for different roles within that setup?

Yeah.

You know, Caelan Doris, I know he's injured at the minute, doesn't have a Champions Cup.

Like, these are class players who've been to loads of finals and only lost them, you know? So that's, like that, that, that, that has to be a bit of a weight on the back.

But I guess-

Um, which leaves the likes of Fintan Gunn, uh, really to kinda take up the mantle since there's no Luke McGrath.

Yeah.

Um, [sighs] no Caelan Doris either.

Um, so it, it, it, it's really hard to, to actually understand what, what type of score it'll be even either.

Uh, Artie Snaiman's still out with his knee.

Uh, Caelan Doris, as we said in the last episode, he's gonna be gone until probably the new year.

Hopefully back before that, but, uh, unlikely.

And then Paddy McCarthy as well, him with his foot.

They're probably the second largest supplier in Ireland.

And then they have this other company which made a big splash with, again, with some celebrity kind of sports people involved, Brian O'Driscoll, Caelan Doris, Grinds360, which has made a, it really has shaken up the private grinds market by supplying, you know, personalised, you know, whether in economics, French, history, you've got these brilliant teachers that they've recruited and kind of poached from a lot of the top schools and give these video classes to kids if they pay about a thousand, just over a thousand euro for a year.

You know, it's a lot of money, but it's cheaper than doing the grinds, maybe, you know, going to the classes every week for a year.

So that's been a very profitable or cash-rich business.

And again, a lot of high profile out of that because of the big celebrity backers like Brian O'Driscoll and Caelan Doris, Jordan Lamour, some GA stars like Walter Walsh from Kilkenny involved in that too.

I suppose over the course of the last 10 years or so since I retired from playing professional rugby, I've tried to get involved in businesses that offer something a little bit different.

And I think this lands in the sweet spot of that where there's nothing really out there that's comparable.

Like, they are the team you would feel most in danger of, "Oh, okay, that's, that's really tough for us." Where if it was Northampton or Bath, you'd probably go, "We've got a bit more of a shot here." Um, where I feel like Leinster do still feel like a juggernaut, and that's a huge part of their kinda legacy and a huge part of what they are is it's an intimidating thing to come up against that royal blue kit and the depth of their squad and the fact they have 50 kinda, like, identikit players, like, bred in a dungeon under Dublin somewhere just put together, like, 3D printed and put out on the day.

And the fact they can pull in these lads from their sub-academy you've never heard of who are then class, and yet they can still bring in Caelan Doris, Josh van der Flier.

I mean, last season they had Rico Ioane.

The fact they have such depth-